The Trouble With Tom (2010)
“A librarian, clicking a pencil against her teeth, is sitting at the head of the two long tables, watching over us like a headmistress watches children eating porridge.
Tick tick. Tick-a click-click.
I'm the only one in Columbia University's rare-book room without a laptop. I've nothing but a grubby notebook that I bought at a bodega as I walked up Broadway I believe the stationer who produced it is the illustrious Made in China, these being the only words to appear anywhere on its yellowed cove...r.
I am also the only one looking up in this room: everyone else looks down, absorbed in work. Even the librarian looks down, particularly while she observes us: her eyes roll up and over her spectacles, and then back down to her own desk, all without any wasted motion. Chittering away around me are the innumerable key clicks of a dozen other scholars at long tables, picking through boxes of manuscripts and personal effects, all the while recording their findings into ones and zeroes, tip-a-tick-a-tip-a-tick-tick, like little mice gnawing through an immense Cheshire cheese.MoreLess
Tick tick. Tick-a click-click.
I'm the only one in Columbia University's rare-book room without a laptop. I've nothing but a grubby notebook that I bought at a bodega as I walked up Broadway I believe the stationer who produced it is the illustrious Made in China, these being the only words to appear anywhere on its yellowed cove...r.
I am also the only one looking up in this room: everyone else looks down, absorbed in work. Even the librarian looks down, particularly while she observes us: her eyes roll up and over her spectacles, and then back down to her own desk, all without any wasted motion. Chittering away around me are the innumerable key clicks of a dozen other scholars at long tables, picking through boxes of manuscripts and personal effects, all the while recording their findings into ones and zeroes, tip-a-tick-a-tip-a-tick-tick, like little mice gnawing through an immense Cheshire cheese.MoreLess
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